Freefall
by lovely-whisper
Summary: During a case, Nicole, the newest member of the team, finds too many parallels with her own life. Is she able to stop the unsub, before the memories consume her?
1. Chapter 1

**Freefall  
Chapter 1**

**CM**

**Disclaimer:  
**Unfortunately I don't own the show. But you can't keep a girl from wishing...

**Summary**:  
During a case, Nicole, the newest member of the team, finds too many parallels with her own life. Is she able to stop the unsub, before the memories consume her?

**A/N:**  
I created a new character because I felt like it. She's not a replacement, all the main characters are present. So, if you want to, see this fic as slightly AU. I will explain Nicole's presence later on in the story.

I wrote a one shot about Nicole, called Gravity of Love. You might want to check it out.

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_Chapter 1_

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_"There are people who, instead of listening to what is being said to them, are already listening to what they are going to say themselves."_

_Albert Guinon._

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At 7.30 am Nicole Winters was already seated at her desk, a pile of files in front of her and at least 3 empty cups of coffee beside it. Every once in a while she would lean back in her chair, massaging the muscles in her neck. She had been watching photographs, reading articles and deciphering handwritten notes for the past hour or so and she was getting restless. No mather how hard she tried, she wasn't able to get her mind of the disturbing conversation she had late last night.

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_Flashback_

She had left Quantico almost a week ago to assist on a case the BAU-team was called to in San Francisco, California. There had been 4 attacks on young, adolescent females in less than 3 weeks and Nicole had been there to make sure that the questioning of the victims would go smoothly and that the victims wouldn't be pussed or hurt even more then they already were. Unintentionally or other wise. She had used soft, kind words to win the trust of the victims and held their hands during the questioning. She even hugged them to her when things got to hard for them. She had listened to their stories. Some were distant, like they had already dealt with it, others were filled with earthshattering cries, but all of them were real. And all of them were counting on her for those few days she was there. Counting on her to protect their interests, leaning on her for support and hoping for her to be somebody they had all been looking for, somebody to listen.

During the time she used to say goodbye to all four victems, she gave each girl her business card, her cellphone number underlined and told them that they could contact her at any time. Day and night. The girls in return gave her a big, almost crushing hug and thanked her for all the wonderful care they had received. After one last group hug, Nicole had left them in the care of their families and had joined the rest of the team on the airport to fly back home.

After being in the air for about 30 minutes, Nicole's cellphone beeped, indicating that she had received a message. After sliding open her phone she found out that the message had come from Derek. It said: "I figured you'd like this. You did a great job once again. X Derek.". Attached to the message was a picture of the group hug, apparently one he had secretly made.

When she looked up from the small screen she saw Derek looking at her. She smiled widely at him and blew him a hand kiss. He pretended to catch it and placed the catched kiss on his cheek. He then leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, trying to get some sleep after a long and hard week. Nicole figured she might as well do the same. She looked at the picture once more, before putting her phone back in her purse.

They had arrived back in Quantico at 7 p.m. JJ, Reid and Emily all headed for their cars, the second they arrived at the familiar FBI-building. Morgan had headed inside to see if Garcia was still in and Gideon and Hotch were standing outside both looking at Nicole.

Suddenly she felt subconsious about herself, because of Gideon and Hotchner's blunt stares. She looked herself up and down and when she didn't find any smudges or open zippers, she looked back up with a questioning look in her eyes.

"What's wrong?", she asked them.

Her question seemed to stop them from staring.

"Nothing's wrong", Gideon reassured her. "We were just wondering what you were going to do".

"Well, I was thinking of going upstairs and finish up my case notes", she replied to them.

"Why don't you go home for the night? It's been a long week. You've done an amazing job with the girls. You deserve some time of work. Besides, you can finish those notes tomorrow", Hotch suggested.

Nicole looked at him with feigned shock in her eyes. Normally Hotch was the first one to say that case notes should be made when they were still fresh. He was such a precise man, he rarely ever waited for the day after.

"Are you going home?", she asked him.

"That doesn't matter", he replied, his tone of voice suggesting she should really head home.

"That's what I thought", she muttered, soft enough to not be heard, but hard enough to be noticed by Gideon.

"Come on, Nicole, I'll drive you home", Gideon told her.

She rolled her eyes, but finally decided to give in.

"Fine, I give up. I'll go home. But I'm taking my car. I don't want to be somebody's burden tomorrow morning because they have to pick me up", Nicole told them.

"We'll see you tomorrow then", Hotch told her, before heading inside the building, Gideon following behind him.

The car ride home was a quiet one, as she vivedly relived the case in her mind.

After about 20 minutes of driving, for once she had watched her speed, she arrived at her home. All the lights were on, indicating that her boyfriend was home.

The second she put her key in the lock, the door was opened with enough force to take it out of it's henches.

"Where the hell have you been?", Kevin, her boyfriend, demanded of her.

"Always nice, coming home to you", Nicole bit back. "Didn't I tell you 6 days ago that I left Quantico for a case?", she asked him impatiently, really not wanting to deal with him tonight.

"Yes, you did. And I told you not to go. But once again, you just didn't listen", he replied back in a sour tone of voice.

"It's what I do. I had to go. I thought you understood that?".

"I don't trust you anymore. I think that you spend those six days doing god knows who", he told her, deliberately not answering her question.

Nicole let out a desperate sigh. "Look, we've been over this like a thousand times. I thought I had made it perfectly clear that I'm not doing god knows who. But you know what, I'm not in the mood right now. I'm going to bed", she told him, before heading up the stairs.

"You will not leave this house until we have talked about it", he yelled after her.

A couple of hours later she was still looking at her ceiling and listening to the deep, even breaths of Kevin, who had crawled into bed a little over an hour after their fight. She had pretended to be asleep and he had bought into it. After a few more restless minutes, she decided to get out of bed and head to the office.

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_End Flashback_

And now here she was. A pile of files in front of her, completing the follow up and made some final notes in some of them. She was caught up in her work that she hadn't heard Aaron Hotchner arrival. She only just then realised he wasn't alone when he said to her.

"Nicole, your husband is here to see you".

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To be continued!

Please read en review!


	2. Chapter 2

**Freefall  
****Chapter 2**

**CM**

**Disclaimer:  
**Unfortunately I don't own the show. But you can't keep a girl from wishing...

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_Chapter 2_

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_Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose._

_Helen Keller_

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Nicole tried to look as normal as she could when Hotch announced the presence of her husband. Inside though she was fuming with anger. She had told Kevin that he could not visit her at work, no matter what the circumstances were. They'd had too many fights about this and for a while she had really believed that he had understood her about visiting her at work. But, no such luck.

She looked up at Aaron Hotchner and noticed that he looked a little confused. He was probably wondering why she never told him about her marriage.

"I'm not married", she told him, still looking at him, like she was trying very hard not to look at Kevin.

"There's no reason for details", Kevin suddenly said, his voice sounding a little too jealous.

"What do you want Kevin?", Nicole replied, trying her best to get a grip on her anger.

"We didn't have a change to talk this morning", Kevin explained, his voice sounding sickly sweet. "You were gone when I woke up".

Meanwhile Kevin kept looking at Hotch, like he was trying to stare him away. Hotch however didn't budge and kept his eyes trained on Nicole.

"I'll give the two of you some space", he told her, before walking towards his office, stopping shortly at Morgan's desk to tell him something. Apparently, Morgan was told to keep an eye on Nicole, because he had now turned his chair in her direction and pretended to read the file his hands were occupied with.

"There's nothing to talk about", Nicole said. "I already told you everything".

"I don't care. I told you last night not to leave the house before we'd have a change to talk. And this morning I woke up and you weren't there. I figured I had made myself pretty clear", Kevin told her, his voice calm but his attutide full with arrogance.

"You didn't actually believed I was going to listen right?", Nicole huffed, surprised by the fact that he obviously still didn't know her very well.

His eyes flamed with anger as he stepped closer to her, pushing her back against her desk. Instead of feeling afraid of him, she felt the anger flow freely through her body as she got the adrenaline rush she needed. He had crossed a line coming to her office and right now he was on her turf.

With all the strength she had, she pussed him away from her, standing tall in front of him with her hands firmly on her hips.

"I will tell you one more time", she said, her voice slightly raised because of the aggrevation.

"This is my job. This is what I do. I told you the second we met that I'm always on call. That means twenty-four-seven, 365 days a year. When I get called in, I'm supposed to drop everything and everyone. Without complaining".

She was now almost yelling at him.

"And when I tell you that I'm leaving town because of a case, I mean that. Just that. So it's not an excuse to run to my superiors and screw them.".

Nicole knew that she was now being watched by the entire team, but right now she didn't care. She would apologize later.

"Let's take this …", Kevin started, but Nicole cut him off.

"I'm not done yet", she grunted out, still trying very hard to control her anger.

"I can't do this anymore. I can't have this fight every single fucking day. I am so sick and tired of explaining my every move to you".

"But I …", Kevin tried again, soundin a little astonished that Nicole had yelled at him like that. Nicole cut him off again.

"I have a briefing in thirty minutes, which means we'll probably leave Quantico this afternoon", she explained calmly.

"We'll be gone for approxiamately three or four days. A week tops. So you have 3 days to get your stuff out of my house and leave the key at the desk in the hall.

"I will not leave like that, not until we've had a reasonable conversation", Kevin answered her, sounding more angry now, almost like her comments had hit base. Like they had fulled his anger.

"There's nothing left to talk about Kevin. We've never had a real chance of hapiness. I'm surprised we even got this far", Nicole replied, her voice sounding distant, like she had already made peace with it.

"Just be gone when I'm back".

Nicole turned around to walk away, when Kevin grabbed her arm, pressing his fingers harsly in the skin of her upperarm. She hissed in pain when she was roughly turned around and pulled towards her raging boyfriend.

Her hiss had alarmed Morgan as he made a beeline towards her.

"Let her go man", he told Kevin. "There's no need to be violent".

"I need her to tell me that she doesn't love me anymore. That we're done", Kevin said, his fingers still tightly pressed into her skin.

Nicole raised her chin defiantly and looked Kevin in the eye.

"I. Do. Not. Love. You.", she spoke clearly. "We. Are. Done".

He roughly pulled her against him once more.

"This is not over", he whispered in her ear, before letting her go.

He pointed at everyone in the room. First Emily, Reid and J.J. Then at Hotch, followed by Morgan and he finished at Gideon.

"This is far from over!", he yelled.

Security had entered the room seconds before his outburst and they were now adressed by Gideon.

"Please escort this gentleman outside".

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TBC!

I'm sorry if this chapter is a little lame. But it will all make sense once the next few chapters are up. I promise.

Please review. I'd love to know what you think!


	3. Dear Readers

Dear readers,

First of all I would like to apologize for the lack of updates on any of my stories. I don't really have an explanation, all I can say is that Life happened. I feel bad, because I love to write and I love the feeling I get when somebody reviews. But for some reason I have stopped writing completely, due to either lack of muse and/or lack of enthusiasm.

But, after this afternoon I will have a three week vacation, which means more than enough time to start writing and updating again. For the first two weeks I won't have a computer, so I won't be able to update. But I promise that in the third week of my vacation, I will add a new chapter to all my incomplete stories.

So hopefully you haven't given up on me yet (wouldn't blame you if you have though).

Thanks for reading and reviewing, it means a lot!

Kirsten  
a.k.a. lovely-whisper


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